Various: Half-Speed Mastered Vinyl Series

It’s not just hip vinyl, it’s old-school records with even better sound and at no great price!

Trying to evaluate and compare audio quality can be a dispiriting exercise, not least because most of us appear content to listen to music on tiny earphones attached to mobile phones that fail to eliminate the sound of the outside world unless you turn up the volume beyond 11 and risk getting Brian Johnson’s ears.

Recent audio innovations – SACD, surround sound – have failed to take off for lack of interest. But among the small but growing minority who prefer to play their music on vinyl, a format that was deliberately killed off in order to sell CDs but refused to die, audio quality still matters.